"Everyone knows that food stamps stimulate the economy by putting purchasing power back in the hands of the unemployed, but the really great thing about them is that you don't even have to be unemployed to get them," Carnegie said.

"Plus, they are not regulated in the same manner as the U.S. dollar is, and so this gives the President more flexibility to increase the supply."

Carnegie added that this flexibility also allows the White House to redirect funds more equitably than private bank accounts and personal finances. She envisions a time when every U.S. citizens will only need one EBT card instead of multiple accounts.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

The tragic incident stemmed from the man’s love of photography: He and his two fishermen friends spotted the animal walking down a country road and decided to take a picture with it, local media reported.

The beaver was complacent at first, but suddenly snapped and attacked one of the fishers, biting him on the thigh deeply enough to cut through the femoral artery...

What is it with tourists that just have to have their picture taken with those cuddly looking bears, deer, elk, beaver, (insert (possibly rabid) animal here)? The fellow with the beaver bite and his friends unfortunately didn't know enough first aid to put on a tourniquet and he didn't make it.

Somehow I doubt the wisdom of getting close and personal with a critter that can chop down a pretty large tree over night, small as it may be when compared with a bear.

Hello nice bear!

While I am on the subject, I must confess that I have had very little luck with acquiring the makings of my beaver hat.

I will try again on the 7th when they are celebrating and perhaps catch them unaware.

Despite promises from the president and a host of other politicians who are pushing for more gun control that nobody is coming for your guns, the confiscation of guns and gun permits has apparently started in some form in New York State. One attorney representing several people who have been forced to surrender their guns spoke with TheBlaze and alerted us to some disturbing facts:

Gun owners are losing their 2nd Amendment rights without due process.

HIPAA Laws are likely being compromised and the 4th and 5th Amendments are being violated in some of these cases

How did confiscation start happening so quickly? Apparently the gun grabbing was triggered by something inside the NY SAFE Act — New York’s new gun law — that has a provision apparently mandating confiscation of weapons and permits if someone has been prescribed psychotropic drugs.

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To the letter of the law, this would include the anaesthetics I was given prior to my recent appendectomy.

One more reason not to pass knee-jerk, feel-good laws, that accomplish little if anything they were intended to do, and create a costly, legal nightmare. The state is currently involved in a lawsuit. The beginning of a police state starts with laws like this.

New York is a "may-issue" state, in that the individual licensing official (typically a local police chief or sheriff) has discretion to issue a license or permit to possess handguns.

The varied New York licensing and permit authorities has resulted in confusing handgun licensing policies, which a licensee must nevertheless abide by when outside the jurisdiction of permit issuing authority. For example, regardless of license, all New York residents with a concealed carry permit must still obtain a New York State Pistol License, apply for a purchase document for each handgun purchased, and may possess only those handguns the license holder has registered with the state.[5][6]

Of all the states that issue carry pistol licenses, New York State has arguably the strictest handgun licensing policies in the nation.[9] New York City, which is effectively a "no-issue" jurisdiction for carry pistol licenses,[10] has even stricter laws, including those regulating handguns exclusively kept at home, thereby making it difficult to virtually impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain, possess, or carry firearms lawfully within New York City.[11]

The constitutionality of many of New York's restrictive firearms laws, including the newly-enacted SAFE Act, are being challenged by lawsuits at the state and federal levels.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

We took Daisy for a walk and changed the cards on a couple of the cameras.

The whole herd was there, but this guy above, decided to lick and or blow and fog up the camera for the rest of the photos.

A couple of geese in the overflow and some widgeon (I think) and mallards.

Looking for voles.

I must say that although this camera tends to start shooting non-stop when it gets below 30*s, it does pick up movement from pretty far away in good weather. The other newer cameras don't seem to have this problem. The animals in general have been showing up more often in the day lately, but most of the shots are still during the night. The elk always show up, day or night.

The last comment posted when I read the article should be a rude awakening to them.

"There is no such thing as "cruelty-free food," unless you eat only vegetables that have been harvested by hand. Reaping machines, etc., kill small mammals, rodents, and nesting birds that live in the fields. If you're eating grains or vegetables grown on a farm that uses any machinery at all, you're killing animals to eat. "

She left out the occasional small faun that gets tangled up in the haying equipment, not to mention the reptiles there for the voles, and many amphibians such as newts and frogs. There are few bloodless options short of growing your own food on a small scale without machines, and that would be way too much work and too expensive for most people. For one thing, it would leave little time to don the spandex and ride the bicycle up and down the road in front of the homestead here.

Perhaps these PETA folks should exit the city and take a trip to the country around harvest time to observe the flocks of vultures and crows following the combines.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

We have been putting up bird houses. In fact I was just delivered another pile of them. It would be nice to see some blue birds move in, but we are plagued with starlings. The little buggers will even stick their heads in houses they can't get into & peck the eggs or young of the birds we are trying to attract. A little further down on this page is the story of why we have starlings.

As they are, as someone pointed out, God's free clay pigeons, I brought the Browning over and under 12 gauge out of the safe and an assortment of re-loads that I didn't go to the trouble of weighing to see if they contain one, or one & 1/4 ounces of shot. They do the job either way. I should probably use a side by side as it would be more suitable for shooting off of an 1800's farmhouse porch, but I'm a better shot with an O&U. I have yet to get enough to eat, as when I shoot one flying by, the others don't return for a while and I am too impatient to wait and not really looking forward to cleaning a mess of them. I guess we are lucky that they are not yet in large flocks here.

So far it's been kind of fun, except that Daisy the pound-hound is somewhat leery of the sound of gunshots. Something that she must have developed before we adopted her.

Here are some things to do with them:

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Broiled starlings on toast:
Cut the breasts in half. Lay inner side down on butter-greased broiler. Tie strip of bacon about each breast with a thread. Broil to a golden brown. Rub with oil or butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and a bit of parsley. Serve on buttered toast.

Roast starling:
Dress starlings same as you would quail. Cover with bacon strips. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add a slice of onion. Place in roasting pan. Roast to a light brown. Baste with drippings to which a touch of vegetable oil has been added. Green parsley and water cress make a suitable garnish. Serve with mushroom soup. A dash of red wine won’t hurt. Serve two starlings to a person. they go good with beer.

Starling stew:
Sprinkle with salt and pepper and fry in butter lightly. Dust with flour and add three slices of onion, 1 bay leaf, add a half glass of wine and water to cover. Stew slowly. When tender, set aside in a warm dish and let the stew-broth simmer to thicken. Then strain and serve.

Karatavuk yahnisi. or starling stew with olives: “Fry some chopped turnips and carrots.
Add a little stock and a glass of red wine. Place some starlings or other small
birds in the pan. Add a thin purée of boiled potatoes mashed with beaten eggs,
dry mustard, and some stock and a little beer. Cover with stock and cook for
about 30 minutes, adding some ripe olives near the end.”

Or, a recipe I have heard that goes well with wild duck:

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Clean the bird; stuff with fruit; & wrap in bacon.

Bake 1 hour @ 500 degrees on an Oak Plank.

Throw out the bird & eat the plank.

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John Lienhard wrote the following:

Today, we face a plague of songbirds. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

Shakespeare's plays are full of references to birds. In 1890 a drug manufacturer named Eugene Scheiffelin decided that New York should be home to all Shakespeare's songbirds. He brought thrushes and skylarks from England and released them into American skies. They failed to fight their way into our ecology.

But 1990 and 1991 mark the centennial of his third experiment. In 1890 he released 60 starlings into Central Park. A year later he released 40 more. This time his romantic gesture was a success. And what a success it was!

Times correspondent Ted Gup tells what happened next. For six years the starlings stayed in Manhattan. New Yorkers were delighted when they showed up in the eaves of the Museum of Natural History. Then they flew out into America. They reached the Mississippi River by 1928, and California by 1942.

Starlings have powerful Darwinian staying power. Today they're at home in both Alaska and Florida. They reproduce with alarming speed. They drive off bluebirds and woodpeckers.

They also form flocks of as many as a million hungry birds. A flock will eat 20 tons of potatoes and foul what they leave behind. They spread histoplasmosis and other diseases.

In 1960 a Lockheed Electra stirred up 10,000 starlings as it left Boston's airport. The plane went straight into the flock. Its engines strangled on starlings and 62 people died.

Attempts to fight the infestation show the same off-the-wall imagination that brought starlings here in the first place. In 1948 Washington, D.C., tried to run them off with artificial owls. Starlings were too smart for that. When engineers strung electric wires around the Capitol columns, the birds just moved next door. We've tried broadcasting the starlings' alarm call. We've used chemicals, cobalt-60, and even Roman candles. In 1931 the Department of Agriculture even put out a recipe for starling pie.

Nothing has worked. The starling has found a home in America that's much to his liking. And we're left with a message we should be taking to heart by now. It is that we're part of earth's equations. Our actions are always irreversible. Stewardship for the earth means looking much further down the line at the results of our actions.

A century ago, such a small thing as a romantic dream about Shakespeare's world in Central Park brought us this plague. How much more do we do when we burn up underpriced oil, overspray bugs, and destroy whole species! The starling story is just one more reminder of the fragility of our planet.

I'm, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work.